All scores are claimed scores unless otherwise noted. January: ARRL RTTY Roundup • QSOs: 1228 • Mults: 97 • Score: 119,116 • Op Time: 21:48 My best score ever for this event. I love this contest. My low power, dipole/vertical station plays best in North American-centric contests so I typically don't put in much effort in contests where DX multipliers or distance factor into the scoring. But for the RTTY RU where DX mults only count once, not once per band, and all QSOs have the same point total, I can make up for the shortcomings of my station by maxing out on operating time. Those 22 hours in the chair were probably the most I have ever put into a single event, and I was at the top of the online scoreboard for my category for much of the contest. The bands were beautifully quiet but there did seem to be some weirdness going on with propagation as some loud stations were difficult to work, especially on Saturday. I tried some different profiles in MMTTY and that seemed to help. I had calls for 40 SMC members in my log and many of those were worked on multiple bands. January: NAQP CW • QSOs: 942 • Mults: 227 • Score: 213,834 • Op Time: 10 hours My first time breaking the 200k point threshold in this contest. I thought I might also be able to get to the 1000 QSO level but ran out of time and steam. Fatigue seemed to set in earlier than usual. Was it the great conditions and, subsequently, the great rates early in the contest? I hope I was giving out the Indiana multiplier to all those incredibly weak IL and WI stations on 15 and 20. I really had to work to get you in the log on my end. There were also a number of times that I had to quit S&Ping on the second radio and just run on the first radio as my brain and ears needed a breather before jumping back in at full bore. I use a call history file for this contest and I maintain my own rather than use the generic file that is available from the N1MM website, as I find the error rate in the public file is uncomfortably high. But I won't be able to update my file with this running due to all those Rods, Ellens, LNs, Freds and Bruces being used, as that would introduce too many inaccuracies for the next NAQP. When the NCJ introduced an assisted category for this contest they should have also adjusted the team scoring to reflect the use of assistance. Other things being equal, a team of 5 unassisted entrants will probably have a lower score than a team with 1 or more assisted entrants. And, is it my imagination, or is the WPM rate for this contest creeping up? I used to think you could chug along at 26 WPM and be in the middle of the pack speed-wise. It seems that the average speed is more like 30 WPM now. Not sure what that means. A fun but exhausting 10 hours, making this a good day to lie on the couch, do the crossword and watch football. January: ARRL January VHF • QSOs: 6 • Mults: 5 • Score: 30 • Op Time: Minuscule Always hopeful of working a new grid but January tends to not be a good time to do that. I worked a couple of callsigns I knew but saw some others I knew that I was unable to work, so band openings were very sporadic. Calling CQ netted a couple of more QSOs. All QSOs were on FT8; nothing heard on the CW and SSB band segments.